


(you've got) a lot of living to do with that life

by goldilocked



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Adult Dipper Pines, Alternate Universe - Demons, Angst, Coming of Age, Fluff, Human Bill Cipher, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Time Skips, Triangle Bill Cipher, they just get spinoff tv shows, this is like a marvel movie no one ever really dies, young dipper pines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25515457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldilocked/pseuds/goldilocked
Summary: The thing about demons is that humansalmostgrasped the thing about demons. Hell's not like an office job, per se: it's more of a pyramid scheme kinda deal. Except, instead of selling herbal supplements, the name of the game is convincing other soon-to-cease-being-people to join you in the eternal hot tub--come on in, the water's fine! You'll only get your face eaten by bears a little bit!And Bill might not be a good person, but heisa decent employee.Bill sets out to steal Dipper's soul.It hits him for the first time, partway through microwaving a second bowl of popcorn, that he has no idea what he's doing anymore.
Relationships: Bill Cipher & Dipper Pines, Bill Cipher/Dipper Pines
Comments: 29
Kudos: 210
Collections: ScribeSmith's Fanfic Library





	(you've got) a lot of living to do with that life

**Author's Note:**

> (puts line breaks in every two sentences) parkour
> 
> i should probably put some ancillary warnings here: there's a brief mention of homophobic slurs (starting at 'dipper's first girlfriend'), and there's a plot-relevant hit-and-run (starting at 'bill is halfway across the country'). take care of yourselves, guys!

Bill Cipher isn’t a good person.

He isn’t even a person, really, anymore, so it might be more prudent to say that he _wasn’t_ a good person. But he _is_ a decent employee. Which was why, when the screaming and crunching noises coming from under Upper Management’s door had stopped long enough for them to point out a soul to him, he’d been skeptical.

 **The Legions of Hell, Faceless Masses of the Deep, Exactors of Sorrow, would like you to keep an eye on that one,** they had thundered. **It is susceptible to corruption.**

Bill had squinted at the slowly shimmering ball of light drifting, nymphlike, before him. Silvery tendrils swirled in its depths. One of them tried to attach itself to his hand, and he quickly shook it off.

 _Cool,_ he said. There was a pause. _So, is this, like, a_ now _thing? ’Cause I’ve kinda got a good thing going with American “military spending,” and—_

**‘Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.’ Know who said that? The chump down on the fourth floor who came up with that horrible comic—you know, the one that refuses to die. We love it. It’ll be in mortal newspapers until the end of time.**

_Yeah, I get that. That was actually what I was going for with the defense spending thing, though, so—_

**Unfortunately for you,** they ground out, voice like pebbles in a blender, **if there is a god, your existence has been forsaken by them. The Legions of Hell would like to remind you that it’s in your best interest to get results.**

Then the screaming and crunching had started up again, and Bill had thought it wise to shut up and move on.

* * *

The thing about demons is that humans _almost_ grasped the thing about demons.

Extradimensional entities watching, surveilling, and otherwise judging people? Check! Acting at the discretion of a higher entity? Double check! Benevolent intentions? Eh… not so much.

Humans, as is par for the course, had the right idea, until they went and got all _optimistic_ with it.

Bill’s only been dead a few decades, but he’s worked his way up through the ranks. Hell’s not like an office job, per se: it’s more of a pyramid scheme kinda deal. Except, instead of selling herbal supplements, the name of the game is convincing other soon-to-cease-being-people to join you in the eternal hot tub— _come on in, the water’s fine! You’ll only get your face eaten by bears a little bit!_

Sure, sinners sometimes end up in Hell organically, but you’ve gotta hit a _lot_ of branches on the way down. The easier, if less fun, way—the one that doesn’t require a life of serial killing, or arson, or managing a brand Twitter—is to sell your soul in a deal.

Bill straightens his bowtie and crinkles the corners of his eye in a self-satisfied smile. Whoever that soul belongs to, they’re about to enjoy a nice, long saunter downwards.

* * *

It’s a kid.

Upper Management are omniscient, so it’s conceivable this little tidbit slipped their mind, but it doesn’t make Bill any less dumbfounded, because this is… this isn’t even a kid. This is a ball of smooth skin and downy hair and big brown eyes.

This is a _baby._

Bill materializes in front of it—him?—and stares, arms slack at his sides. The baby gurgles and tries to poke his eye.

Amendment: this is a _stupid_ baby, and Bill hates it.

* * *

The next time Bill appears to what people seem to call _Dipper,_ but what he’s privately dubbed _Pine Tree,_ because he’s convinced that’s what the kid has growing between his ears instead of a brain, it’s because Dipper has tumbled off a couch. Like the little idiot he is.

Bill looks down at the wide-eyed baby sprawled on the floor, blinking like he can’t quite register how something as horrible as gravity could possibly have happened to him, and thinks he sees a problem.

“Hey, kid,” he tries anyway, because his personal philosophy is more or less _what the hell._ “Wanna make a deal?”

Dipper turns those big, glimmering eyes on him and sniffles.

Yeah. This isn’t gonna work.

* * *

Bill has an eternity. He can wait for the kid to wrap the pound of wet sponge in his skull around the concept of language.

But still, it’s been a hot second since he was human, and even when he _was,_ he wasn’t exactly a pediatrician. He has no idea how long it’s supposed to take kids to learn to speak—it’s been two months, and this one still communicates like he’s sleeping off seven shots. Maybe Dipper’s defective. Maybe crunching bones got old and Upper Management decided to set Bill up to fail for shits and giggles.

Bill floats down in front of the kid. “Hi again,” he says.

Dipper, pointedly, says nothing back. Bill’s eye narrows.

“Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?” he asks, planting his hands on his bottom points in lieu of hips. It’s dark out, the house is silent, and in Dipper’s dim room, Bill casts more of a glow than the cloud-shaped nightlight beside his sister’s crib. Bill can see the golden glimmer of his reflection in Dipper’s wide eyes.

“My name’s Bill,” continues Bill, because apparently Dipper is determined to make him carry this conversation. “And your name is—surprisingly—not Small, Fleshy Disappointment. Bad call by your parents, I’ll tell you that for free!”

Dipper plops himself down into a sitting position, eyes never leaving Bill. “A-da,” he remarks. Bill wonders what kind of sick mind game this is.

“Can you say, ‘I, Mason Pines, sign my soul over to the eternal possession of Hell’?”

“Blah,” says Dipper.

“You’re an idiot,” Bill informs him.

Dipper sticks his tongue out at him and blows a raspberry.

If Bill had a nose, he’d wrinkle it. “And disgusting. Keep that inside your mouth, please and thank you.”

Dipper lays a small hand on Bill’s front. “Biw,” he says serenely.

“Bill,” corrects Bill.

“Biw.”

“Bill.”

“Biw.”

“You’re doing this on purpose,” accuses Bill.

 _“Biw,”_ says Dipper gleefully, and makes a grab for Bill’s bowtie.

* * *

“Bill,” says Dipper, three weeks later.

His parents gasp and rush over and make cooing noises and exclaim things like, “His first word!” and, “Aww, a little debt collector already!” and, “Did Stanley teach you that?” and Bill hovers, invisible to all, in the corner of the room, feeling pleased with himself.

One small step for dumb, monosyllabic child, one giant leap for demon with top brass to impress.

* * *

As if Dipper weren’t already the _worst human in existence,_ at the ripe age of four, he develops night terrors.

A few sleepless nights at the Pines household would be no (metaphorical) skin off Bill’s (metaphorical) back. That is, if—big, _big_ if—he weren’t included in them.

Regrettably, Bill’s attuned to the kid’s soul. Which means that, even as he assures a young woman that having an affair really _will_ fill that void in her life, he has a simultaneous front-row ticket to _incessant crying._ He deeply, profoundly regrets not having ears to plug.

Once the woman’s moral qualms are suitably quashed, Bill appears before Dipper and gives him a scowl—or as close to a scowl as he can get with no mouth. “If you don’t shut up and go to sleep,” he growls, “I’ll show you what real nightmares look like.”

Dipper’s face twists up, button nose scrunching, as he mimics Bill’s expression. “Don’t wanna,” he huffs. He’s not startled by the sudden materialization; maybe Bill’s letting him get too acclimated to his presence. “It’s scary an’ Mabel calls me a baby.”

“You’re gonna have to sleep eventually, kid.”

“Maybe I won’t,” says Dipper. “Maybe I’ll stay up aaaall night an’ talk to you instead.”

Bill can imagine nothing more horrifying. “Well, _I’m_ not going to talk to _you_ all night.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

 _“Fine.”_ The kid is silent for a blessed moment, during which Bill evaluates every life choice he’s ever made and finds them seriously lacking. Then he says, so quietly Bill almost misses it: “…Can you snuggle me?”

It takes every ounce of Bill’s self-control to not let his eye twitch. “Snuggle you,” he repeats flatly.

“Yeah.” Dipper doesn’t even have the common decency to sound defensive about it, the _fiend_. “’S what my parents do when I can’t sleep.”

“In case it’s somehow escaped your expert attention, Sherlock, I am neither one of your parents. I’m a condemned soul working for an entity of unimaginable malice to bring about the destruction of your existence as you know it.”

Dipper crosses his arms, another gesture he’s picked up from Bill. It’s equally clumsy as the scowl. “Well, _I’m_ scared.”

There’s a terse moment, during which Bill contemplates whether earplugs might actually work if he holds them tight enough against his sides. Finally, he heaves a sigh and drifts down to settle on the bed. “Your parents should be the ones dealing with this shit,” he grumbles. “Don’t repeat that word.”

“Mmkay,” says Dipper sleepily, scooching to curl up beside Bill, dragging the blanket over with him. “G’night.”

Bill wouldn’t think he’d make a good pillow—he’s all sharp angles and straight edges—but Dipper seems perfectly content to flop over onto him, cheek smushed against Bill’s front like he’s made of cotton and goose down instead of raw, coalesced energy. Three minutes later, Dipper’s snoring. And drooling.

 _Boy,_ is he drooling.

Bill glares at the ceiling and vows to leave this out of his report to Upper Management.

* * *

Bill isn’t always shadowing Dipper, of course. He’s got other fish to smooth-talk into the pan and then fry. But, admittedly, he does spend a greater than necessary share of his time with the kid.

It’s only because Dipper is so careless. Well, no: _careless_ isn’t the right word. His sister, who does cartwheels across the street, who thinks that if she dives headfirst at the ground she’ll land in a headstand, who samples every flower she can get her hands on to see if she can identify the colours by taste, is careless. Dipper is… reckless, maybe.

In junior kindergarten, he catches a toad and holds it right up to his eyes. In senior kindergarten, he nearly follows a monarch butterfly off a cliff on a nature walk. In first grade, he accepts a dare to stick his— _metal!_ —fork in the wall outlet, and Bill has to do some quick water-to-wine-ing, leaving Dipper blinking down at a utensil that he swears to the kids at his table didn’t always used to be plastic.

Because Bill’s been given a job, and damn it, when that kid’s soul is wrenched from his body, it’s going _down._ To the filing room, to be more specific. That’s where Hell starts all the new demons.

There’s no greater torture than an unpaid internship, he likes to imagine Upper Management saying.

 **Stop imagining things. You’re making us nauseous,** they snarl in his mind.

 _Not like this position is exactly paradise, either,_ he thinks grumpily, as he convinces an inexperienced drug runner to crack a joke about the name Jingle-Jangle in a room full of armed cartel members.

* * *

“You’re not an imaginary friend,” says Dipper one day in the backyard, apropos of nothing.

“What makes you say that?” asks Bill.

Dipper scrutinizes him narrowly. He looks far too shrewd for a six-year-old, and Bill feels a stab of pride. “We talked about them. In school today.” He pokes at the grass with a stick. “We watched this movie Inside Out, and Bingo-Bongo was an imaginary friend, and he lived in Riley’s head. But you’re not imaginary like him.”

He pauses, expectant, so Bill agrees, “I’m sure not!”

Dipper’s shoulders relax minutely. “Good,” he says, fierce, stabbing the ground more forcefully. “Because Bingo-Bongo had to go away so Riley could grow up. But you’re not imaginary, so you’re not going to go away.” He looks up at Bill with plaintive brown eyes. “Right?”

Not before you do, Bill wants to say. But that’ll bring up a whole host of awkward questions, and besides, there’s an odd tightness swelling behind where his chest might have once been, so he pats Dipper’s soft hair and says, “’Fraid you’re stuck with me, Pine Tree!”

Dipper giggles, stormy expression breaking, and smiles up at him. “I’m not a _tree,”_ he says, like he thinks Bill is a little confused, the way Dora is when she asks questions and he has to shout the answers to her so she can save the Map.

“What? Really? But you’re getting so tall!”

“You just think that ’cause you’re a triangle,” says Dipper practically.

“Eh. Got me there.” Bill settles down on the grass beside him, kicking his legs idly. Dipper continues to stab the ground, following some pattern discernible only to six-year-olds. Bill listens to the breeze through the trees and thinks about how much calmer of a backdrop it makes than crunching and screaming.

After a moment, Dipper adds, with a decisive air that brokers no argument, “Anyways. You’re more like Joy.”

“Joy? Why?” Bill side-eyes him the best he can with only the one. “This isn’t gonna be another crack about my height, is it? Three-letter word? Three sides? C’mon, Pine Tree, you’re better than this.”

“No, dummy,” says Dipper, like it should be obvious. “It’s ’cause you’re yellow and nice.”

For once, Bill is at a loss for words. He blinks: once, twice.

On the fifth blink, he settles for, “Don’t call people dummies, Pine Tree.”

Dipper heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Sorry, Bill.”

“Not unless they’re doing something dumb,” he quickly tacks on, because he’s a demon, and there are certain standards to uphold.

“Okay, Bill.”

* * *

After that, Bill doesn’t show up as often.

Oh, he’s still _around;_ still has part of his attention pinned to Dipper for moments of weakness to exploit. But if Dipper was shrewd at six, he’s an absolutely _relentless_ ten-year-old. The kid has the good sense not to mention Bill to others, not even his sister, but every time Bill appears, he finds himself with a magnifying glass in his face—he’s going to have _strong words_ with whoever bought Dipper that—and a thousand questions peppering him and a pen poised to take notes on his height and area and angles and—

It’s exhausting, even for a being of limitless energy.

And maybe he could’ve gotten away with that; with listening with half an ear to Dipper’s soul. Except the kid… _talks_ to him.

When he’s alone and idle, curled up with a book, Dipper will occasionally lower his voice to barely below a murmur and quietly chat about his day. Meaningless things: he rode his bike to school today, and on the way, he saw a _deer,_ and he thought that was pretty cool, even if Mabel _was_ too loud and spooked it—

It’s not like Bill wants to listen. But when a mortal says his name, it _prickles,_ and he glances in on Dipper out of sheer surprise the first few times, wondering if it was a mistake to tell the kid his name. The next occasions can be excused as him searching for personal details to leverage against Dipper.

It’s when he finds himself chatting back that Bill runs out of explanations.

* * *

“Are you my guardian angel?” asks an eleven-year-old Dipper.

Bill hesitates. “Something like that,” he says, and reminds himself that he’s already been sent to Hell and doesn’t have to worry about being a bad person anymore.

* * *

Dipper’s teenage years roll around, and Bill has an idea.

Not just an idea: an _idea._

When Bill shows up to Dipper next, he appears as he did when he was human. It takes more energy, but he’s glimpsed the kind of dreams Dipper’s started to have, even if Dipper won’t admit them to himself, and. Well.

Not to toot his own horn, but before Bill was equilateral, he happened to be blond, svelte, and high-cheekboned. It doesn’t hurt that he died a month shy of his twenty-first birthday. A shame, that—for all the obvious reasons, the hand-wringing and cosmic unfairness and life-not-lived, but also because there are no stores called _Forever-Almost-21,_ and Bill is obligated to mourn the lost comedic material.

Either way, any advantage is worth it.

Dipper’s eyes go comically wide when he first sees Bill. “Huh,” he squeaks. He clears his throat and says, lower, “Huh. You’re, uh… a person?”

“Used to be!” chirps Bill. “Nonpracticing. Guess you could say I was retired.”

Dipper nods, distractedly. His eyes keep migrating down to Bill’s collarbone, and he keeps starting and dragging them back up to Bill’s face. It’s hilarious to watch Dipper try his damnedest not to check him out, and Bill laughs, unfolding his long legs on the bed—which, based on how Dipper flushes, does the kid precisely zero favours.

“Don’t worry about it, Pine Tree. When in Greece, do as the Greek do!” says Bill cheerfully, enjoying the furrow that appears between Dipper’s eyebrows as he tries to parse that.

* * *

It dawns on him, a year and a Classical Civs credit later, and he smacks Bill’s upper arm in retribution.

“Fuck you,” he says with a scowl. “I’m not—no. Fuck you.”

“Oh, so you _did_ figure out the punchline!”

Dipper smacks him again. Harder. It was still worth it.

* * *

“Bill,” says Dipper, “Bill, Bill, Bill, Bi—”

Bill materializes with a _pop._

Well, not actually—when he appears, it’s soundless _as the grave,_ or some equally macabre simile—but he says “Pop,” because he’s seen how seriously some of the other demons take themselves, and it’s not a good look on anyone. Plus, he’s kinda missed the boat on Dipper ever being intimidated by him.

“That’s my name, kid, don’t wear it out!”

Dipper pushes back from his desk, shoving a hand through his hair, perfectly unfazed by the demon blinking into existence mere feet from him. “Do you know French?”

« _Sais-tu comment de tais-toi ? »_ mocks Bill, sore at the idea of being used for _homework help._ Not enough to vanish, though.

Dipper stares at him a moment. “I’m… going to take that as a yes.” He gestures, frustrated, to the textbook lying open in front of him: _Je peux demander les toilettes en français et c’est tout !_ declares a blandly smiling Frenchman on the page. “Can you tell me how to conjugate le futur proche?”

“What’ll you give me for it? Think it’s worth your soul?”

Dipper chuckles at that.

After a second, so does Bill.

* * *

Dipper’s first girlfriend breaks up with him at the end of senior year. It’s messy and it’s cruel and she uses words Bill hasn’t heard in a long time— _repressed_ and _flaming_ and _fag_ —and that night Bill appears before Dipper in all his human-formed glory, ready to sweep his soul away from this miserable existence in a flourish of hellfire and cackling—

—and winds up, three hours later, on the couch with Dipper’s head in his lap as the kid sniffles, watching a Noah Centineo movie and reassuring Dipper that, honestly, Bill never liked her, and Dipper deserves better, and besides, only idiots stick with their high school beaus.

It hits him, partway through microwaving a second bowl of popcorn, that he has no idea what he’s doing anymore.

* * *

Bill has to start reminding himself to switch back into his triangular form to make his reports to Upper Management. It’s just… it’s more convenient to walk around looking like a person.

Plus. He never realized how _warm_ Dipper is until he touched him with working nerve endings.

* * *

Dipper gets into his dream college. Bill is the normal amount of happy for someone in his position about it.

“—you’re gonna have so much fun, it’s chock-full of other nerds, just don’t come back in a sweater vest or I’ll be morally obligated to put you out of your misery before it progresses to pocket protectors—”

 _“Bill,”_ laughs Dipper, wriggling out of the arm Bill has slung around his shoulders, “I swear, you’re more excited about this than I am.”

The brightness in his eyes says otherwise, and Bill sniffs. “You’re a smart cookie, Pine Tree. Shut up and let me be proud of you.”

Dipper rolls his eyes, but when Bill draws him close again, he leans into it, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips.

* * *

Dipper’s dorm has a frugal bed, and a dresser, and a desk with a small window above it that overlooks the street. It also has a couch he leaves a blanket on whenever Bill comes over—a silent offer.

It’s far too late in the game to be drawing lines in the sand, but Bill will be damned if he doesn’t at least pretend this is still purely professional.

That attempt at professional distance is why, when Bill flops dramatically onto Dipper’s couch and closes his eyes for hardly a moment, only to jolt awake eight hours later, his heart seizes up.

He opens his eyes—eye? no, eyes—to a warm wool blanket draped over him, to sunlight streaming in through the curtains. To Dipper sitting beside him, sipping coffee.

“Looks like you needed that,” remarks Dipper, wry, and Bill almost pitches off the couch. Dipper hums in thought and says, “You know, I just realized: I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep before.”

“Sleep is for—” _The living._ “—the weak,” Bill finishes, then coughs. His voice is… hoarse? Groggy? He can’t remember if that’s supposed to happen when you wake up. Dipper doesn’t look concerned, though, so probably, right?

Dipper treats him to a lopsided smile from behind his coffee. “That’s different.”

Hell yeah it’s different. Bill shouldn’t… he didn’t…

He hasn’t slept since he took a swan-dive off this mortal coil and never hit bottom. That he’s somehow managed to pass out here, _now,_ rattles him to his very core.

Perturbed, Bill leaves through the door like a human instead of simply dematerializing. He’s so disgruntled that he absently takes a bite out of the toast Dipper presses into his hand on his way out—then almost does a spit-take, because eating is up there with sleeping on the list of things he really, really shouldn’t be able to do.

* * *

Upper Management must be trying out something new, because their office is filled with the buzzing of a thousand flesh-eating flies when Bill stops by.

“What’s happening to me?” he demands.

**Not now, Cipher. The Legions of Hell are doing some remodelling.**

‘Remodelling’ looks an awful lot like peeling strips of necrotic flesh from a body-shaped lump of translucent wings and seething black carapace, but Bill isn’t here to judge. “No, I mean—something’s _different.”_

**We’re pleased you noticed. We changed out the carpets. They make them in floral print now, did you know that?**

“Not with the room,” snaps Bill. “With _me._ I… I’ve been…”

That’s when he realizes he never remembered to change out of his human form.

The sick buzzing takes on a reproachful undertone. **Just get the boy’s soul, Cipher.**

Coincidentally, that’s also when he realizes he’s fucked.

* * *

Dipper turns twenty-one.

It’s weird. Even though time has no real meaning to Bill anymore—Hell really puts the ‘eternal’ in ‘eternal damnation’—it’s bittersweet, somehow, the knowledge that Dipper is now older than Bill ever got to be.

Dipper spends the night celebrating with his sister and friends and, true to college student form, comes home drunk.

He stumbles into the dorm and shrugs his coat off carelessly by the door. His curly hair is mussed from fingers in it, his own or someone else’s, and when Bill coalesces from the pool of moonlight under the window, his face lights up.

“Hey, Bill! I was looking for you.”

Bill decides to humour him. “Well, guess you found me.”

“Huh. Yeah.” Dipper tips his head to the side to consider that, and Bill is reminded of an inquisitive puppy. “Know what that means?”

Bill opens his mouth to say that, no, he doesn’t know what that means, and in Dipper’s state he doubts he knows much of anything, when Dipper steps forward, slides warm arms around his neck, and kisses him.

Bill doesn’t kiss him back. He doesn’t _not_ kiss him back, either. Just stands there and stares, dumbstruck, at this flushed, giggly version of Dipper as he pulls back, letting his head drop to rest on Bill’s shoulder.

“You’re, like, stupid hot,” mutters Dipper into Bill’s collar. “’S unfair. I dunno why you’re a triangle sometimes.”

Bill doesn’t say anything in response; just licks the taste of alcohol off his lips and helps Dipper to his bed. He ignores the new options for coercion as they bloom inexorably in his mind like ink across a page.

It would be so easy to get Dipper to sign his soul over, right here, right now. Bill would just step forward, catch Dipper’s chin, kiss him breathless. Push him down onto the mattress and straddle him, roll his hips _just so_ until Dipper is desperate, thoughts slow and hot in his head and agreeing to anything, just _move, Bill, please—_

Bill sets a glass of water and an aspirin on Dipper’s nightstand, and leaves. It occurs to him, briefly, to wonder if he should be concerned about the vaguely sick feeling that thought sent rolling in the pit of his stomach.

He’s a demon. Any advantage is worth it.

But this one… this one isn’t.

* * *

It’s only later, much later, that Bill realizes he didn’t correct Dipper when he said that Bill is a person that sometimes looks like a triangle, rather than a triangle that occasionally pulls together his old human form.

* * *

_Later_ replaces _what the hell_ as Bill’s new motto.

He’s still going to collect Dipper’s soul, just… not now. Not while Dipper’s so _happy._ There’s always later.

Until, one crisp autumn morning, there isn’t.

* * *

Bill is halfway across the country, examining Florida’s disease response and deciding he can’t think of any way to actually make it worse—hey, if it’s broke, don’t fix it!—when the truck comes out of nowhere.

The truck came out of nowhere and Dipper was looking at his phone and Mabel pushed him out of the way and oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, babbles Dipper when Bill materializes in the blink of an eye. The kid has his hands on his knees, doubled over on the side of the road, sheet-pale and shaking. Rambling to Bill seems like the only reason he hasn’t yet thrown up.

He’s studiously averting his eyes from the bloody lump of meat in the middle of the crosswalk. Bill can see why: it’s more reminiscent of lunch meat than a person, the bones all mangled, ends snapped and flattened like dry twigs. The face is caved in on itself, a wet cavity spreading slowly… across… the asphalt…

Oh.

Oh, shit.

Dipper takes a wet, shuddering breath. Throughout his frantic retelling, he hasn’t suggested once to call an ambulance.

Looking at the crushed mess of what used to be Mabel’s torso, Bill can see why. He doesn’t need supernatural perception to see there’s nothing to be done.

He steps forward, putting himself between Dipper and his wreck of a sister. “Pine Tree,” he says softly. “Breathe, kid.”

Bill’s arms come up to support him, and Dipper collapses into the hold, shaking with silent sobs. Bill puts a hand on the back of his head, carding his fingers through his hair, keeping Dipper’s face pressed into his shoulder, where he won’t catch another glimpse of Mabel. Although that sight is probably already seared into Dipper’s mind for the rest of his life.

Dipper is still trembling against Bill, but he pulls back, eyes frantic and lost. “You’re… you’re magic, right? Can you do something?”

Bill’s expression softens. “Not that kind of magic, kid.”

He can pull small miracles from his personal cache. Something like this, though, he knows, staring down at Mabel’s twisted body, would require a transaction.

“But— but—”

Bill’s never thought much about Dipper’s sister, but the panic rising from Dipper is infectious; he can feel worry sparking in his own mind. He shoves it down before it can take root and takes Dipper by the shoulders. “Pine Tree,” he says firmly, “listen to me. There’s nothing I can do without a deal.”

“A deal?” echoes Dipper, and Bill realizes his slipup too late. “But isn’t that… a…”

Bill can pinpoint the moment it all clicks from how Dipper’s eyes widen, then narrow. He wrenches himself out of Bill’s grip. “You… you…”

Dipper’s had a lifelong interest in the paranormal, sparked by Bill himself. He knows the implications of a Faustian bargain. Knows how demons operate.

Knows now, as he stares at Bill’s frozen expression, what they look like.

Dipper barks a laugh, an ugly, broken sound that grates on Bill’s ears. “This whole time, you were…” He shakes his head jerkily. “You know, it makes _sense,_ honestly. Why else would you… would this…”

His jaw trembles, but not with anger; unshed tears glimmer in his eyes. He swallows, and Bill realizes that Dipper isn’t going to let himself cry in front of him. Not anymore.

“So, what, then,” says Dipper, tight and trembling and barely in control. “Was this the plan the whole time, huh? You were just gonna walk around, and let me think you were my— my _friend,_ and then you were gonna _kill my sister?”_

Dipper flinches at _kill._ Bill doubts he meant to say it, but he goes on, growing steadily louder: “Why me, huh? What, did you draw the short straw? Or was it just ’cause you thought I’d be dumb enough to fall for it? Well, guess what, _Bill?”_ Another one of those laughs. It lands like a punch to the gut. “I _was!”_

Dipper gets quiet, all of a sudden, and that’s worse. Hunching his shoulders in on himself, he says, softly, “I really, really was.” He sniffles, scrubs angrily at his nose with the back of his jacket sleeve. “Guess Stan was right. I _am_ an easy mark.”

There’s a weird feeling in Bill’s chest, like it’s tearing itself apart. “Pine Tree—”

 _“Don’t fucking call me that,”_ hisses Dipper.

Bill raises his palms. “Dipper,” he says. It’s important to him, somehow, that Dipper understands this. “I didn’t do anything to your sister.”

“And that’s supposed to mean anything? You’re been _lying_ to me, Bill, for— shit, my whole life! How do I know this isn’t a lie, too? All the _jokes_ you made, about stealing my soul…” Dipper takes a sharp breath, like he’s been struck. “Those weren’t jokes, were they? They sure weren’t _funny._ And… and now…” All the air seems to go out of him at once. “Fuck. And now Mabel is... is dead.”

He looks unsteady on his feet, but Bill knows better than to try to touch him. “Dipper—”

Dipper’s eyes snap to his face, and he steps forward, stabbing a finger into Bill’s chest. _“Fix this,”_ he demands.

“I don’t know what you want me to do, kid,” says Bill helplessly, taking a step back.

Dipper’s gaze flickers down and to the side. When he drags it back up, there’s steel behind his eyes. “I want to make a deal.”

Bill laughs. And then he doesn’t, because Dipper is staring at him with a set jaw, mouth drawn to a thin, determined line, and holy shit, he’s _serious._

“No,” says Bill. Then again, more forcefully: _“No.”_

“Why not?” challenges Dipper. Desperation swims alongside resentment in his eyes. “That’s all you wanted me for, right? This should be like a dream come true for you.”

“Pi— _Dipper._ Your sister is _dead._ The energy it would take to bring her back… what I would need in return…”

Dipper lifts his chin. “Name your price.”

It’s such a stupid thing to say to a demon, Bill is seized with the hysterical urge to laugh again. “Dipper,” he says instead, selecting his words carefully, “my deals… trust me when I say you don’t want to make one. They always backfire.”

“I _said,”_ repeats Dipper, low and dangerous, “name your price.”

“Okay, fine,” Bill says suddenly, with a wild rush of triumph. “You want to make a deal?” He sticks out a hand. “Your soul. _That’s_ the price.”

Dipper’s desperate, but he’s not an _idiot,_ and such a raw deal, tantamount to suicide, will snap him out of it, make him face how impractical he’s be—

“Deal,” says Dipper, reaching for the hand so quickly Bill almost doesn’t have time to retract it.

Almost. _“What?_ No, you can’t accept that! I’m screwing you over! _Painfully obviously_.”

“I _know.”_ Dipper’s voice drips with an acerbic sort of patience. “You’ve been doing that for a while. But I don’t care. I need to save my sister.”

He sighs at the look on Bill’s face. “Look, I want to make a deal, and you want my soul. I don’t see what the problem is.”

“I— it— you—” Bill sputters. Because he doesn’t see what the problem, is, either: Dipper, on his metaphorical knees and begging, his soul ripe for the taking, soon to be condemned… it’s all he’s worked toward for over twenty years.

So why do his insides feel so knotted up?

Dipper’s gaze is steady as he meets Bill’s eyes. “I’m not asking, Bill. I _am_ making this deal. Whether with you, or with one of your demon friends. I’m sure _they_ won’t have a problem with this.”

Bill wants to think he’s bluffing. The problem is that he knows Dipper; has known him his whole life.

“Okay,” he says, at length. “If this is really what you want.”

He takes a breath and straightens up. Looks in Dipper’s face, trying to memorize the faint splash of freckles across the bridge of his nose, the amber flecks in his eyes.

“Goodbye, Dipper,” he says. He clenches his jaw and stubbornly doesn’t let it come out wistful.

Then he shakes his hand.

* * *

Dipper Pines is buried on a Wednesday.

It’s not actually Dipper; just his body. The _real_ Dipper vanished the moment Bill’s hand closed around his, and even if his body continued to falter on for a few horrible minutes after that, failing heart struggling to push blood to an unresponsive brain, it _doesn’t matter,_ because it wasn’t Dipper.

Mabel is there when they lower the casket into the ground, looking gaunt and shell-shocked in her black skirt. Hollowed out.

She stumbles her way home on perfectly repaired legs, and Bill loathes her for it. He knows none of this is her fault—that she didn’t make Dipper so idiotically, revoltingly, _wonderfully_ self-sacrificing—but he’s a demon. He’s allowed to indulge in irrational grudges.

* * *

He doesn’t go to the funeral.

* * *

Three months later, one of the interns presses a file into Bill’s hand.

He scowls at the coffeemaker in front of him. He hasn’t bothered to change out of his human form, and although he can feel the looks the interns exchange behind his back, they’re all afraid of him—and for good reason—so he hasn’t yet received a lecture on dress code. Today would be a fabulously crappy day for it.

“What?” he snarls, not turning around. “Decided this afterlife wasn’t torturous enough for your taste? Want me to kill you again?”

“Um,” says a familiar voice from behind him, and if Bill’s heart still beat, it would have stopped all over again. “Sorry to bother you?”

Bill whips around. And there is Dipper.

He’s wearing a button-up with a nametag that reads _This wretched soul answers to **Mason**_ pinned to it, and he looks exactly how Bill remembers him: unruly curly hair, honey-brown eyes, brow slightly furrowed, even now. The only difference is the shimmer to his pale skin; the same moonstone sheen Bill remembers seeing on his soul in Upper Management’s office, all those years ago.

The fine line between Dipper’s eyebrows smooths into relief as Bill turns around. “Oh, phew. It _is_ you. I was worried for a second that you were some other demon—is it racist if I can’t tell them apart sometimes? I mean, racist against _what,_ though; a disconcerting number of them look like piles of ooze—and I’d… embarrassed myself…”

He trails off as it becomes increasingly apparent that Bill hasn’t reacted. Hasn’t _blinked._

Self-consciously, Dipper rubs the back of his neck. “Sorry,” he repeats, shifting from foot to anxious foot. “I’m… still kind of new to this? And this place is super confusing. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to just come up to you—like, are you my boss? Do I have to make an appointment to speak with you?”

Bill’s still staring. Dipper, if possible, gets even more nervous. “I just, uh. I know we left off on the wrong foot, and I wanted to… see you? Again? And now that I say it out loud it sounds stupid, and I’m sure you’ve made deals with plenty of humans, and my first word to you was ‘um,’ and you’re _clearly_ in the middle of something—you know what, it was nice catching up with you, but I should probably head back—”

He turns to go, and Bill’s brain starts working again, just in time for him to lunge forward and wrap his arms around Dipper. His skin might gleam like cellophane, but he’s solid and warm and _Dipper_ under Bill’s grip.

“Oh,” says Dipper, sounding surprised. “Hi?”

Bill turns his face into the side of Dipper’s neck. Even though they’ve long since left the material plane, the curls that tickle his nose still smell like fresh air and pine needles. “Hi,” he whispers.

After a hesitant moment, like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, Dipper relaxes into the embrace, his arms folding around Bill’s waist to return it just as fiercely. It strikes Bill, then, that they’re the same height; that when Dipper ledges his chin on Bill’s shoulder, his shaky exhale is right by Bill’s ear.

Demons don’t sleep and they don’t eat and they _definitely_ don’t hug, but Bill’s always made exceptions for Dipper.

Dipper shifts his grip and chuckles, the low vibrations of it rumbling against Bill. “I think people are staring.”

Still holding Dipper, Bill raises his voice to call, “You’re still on the clock, people!” There’s a hurried rustling of papers as demons scramble to pretend they’ve been doing what they’re supposed to.

“So you _are_ my boss,” muses Dipper. He buries his smile in Bill’s shoulder. “Good to know.”

“I’m sorry,” murmurs Bill, voice low and for Dipper’s ears only. “I’m so sorry. About everything. I shouldn’t have done this to you—you should have had a nice, long life and graduated with your bachelor’s degree and settled down and—”

Dipper steps back, hands sliding down to encircle Bill’s wrists, drawing them out from his body. “Bill,” he says, “it’s okay. _I’m_ okay.”

Bill looks him up and down, hesitantly. He does seem remarkably… okay.

 _Weirdly_ okay.

“You look like Hell’s been treating you well,” he remarks. “You’re _worlds_ more put-together than I was at first.”

Dipper nudges his shoulder playfully. “To be fair to yourself, you didn’t have someone waiting for you.”

Bill clears his throat. “Still,” he says, to drown whatever odd fluttering thing is going on his chest. “Sorry about the… soul-stealing stuff.”

 _The soul-stealing stuff?_ He only has a minute to wonder where his eloquence evaporated to, because then Dipper laughs, and it’s clear and bright, and oh fuck, if the heat along Bill’s neck metastasizes into a blush, he’s going to go join the adulterers in the magma pits.

“Yeah, that was a dick move. I’m still pissed at you for not telling me you were a demon, by the way. But, uh… I did some research into… your assignment. When I first got here.” Dipper averts his eyes, looking bashful, like he’s just admitted to poking through Bill’s diary. “You might want to check that file.”

Bill glances down at the plain manila folder in his hand, flipping it open.

 **Mason Pines,** reads the header.

“Oh,” he says.

“Yeah.” The corner of Dipper’s mouth quirks upward. “You _really_ hated me at first, didn’t you?”

“To be fair, I thought this was going to be one-and-done,” defends Bill halfheartedly as he scans pages of notes in his own cursive. He knows what they say, of course, but it’s like he’s seeing them through fresh eyes; seeing for the first time how the observations and snarky asides peter out over the years, replaced first by neutral comments— _didn’t know he could cook—_ then by positive _._ Part of one page is taken up by brainstorming ideas for the cat Dipper had asked him to help name, and Bill grimaces. “I didn’t think I’d be… sticking around.”

“Well.” Dipper rocks back on his heels. “I, for one, am glad you did.”

Bill suddenly realizes he still has a cup of coffee in one hand and a file in the other. “Here,” he says, reflexively passing Dipper the coffee, then blinks and snatches it back. “No, wait, don’t drink that. The coffee here’s terrible. Makes you relive the most agonizing parts of your existence.”

Dipper raises his eyebrows and huffs a quiet laugh. “Huh. Guess that’s one way to break the caffeine habit.” He glances down, scuffing one shoe on the carpet, and asks, almost shyly, “Would you maybe want to… catch up and grab coffee somewhere else, later? Somewhere less agonizing?

Bill smiles at him, slow and genuine; because he might not be good, might not even be a person, but Dipper is both of those things. He’s both of those things, and he’s _here._

“Yeah,” he says. “I’d like that.”

* * *

“So, out of curiosity, when were you planning to tell me you were a demon?”

“ _Eventually_. It just… never came up. Oh, don’t give me that look, kid; _you_ try to work your eternal damnation into casual conversation!”

“You know, technically, you’re stuck at twenty. That makes me a full year older than you. If anything, _I_ should be the one calling _you_ kid.”

“I’m twenty and _eleven months._ Don’t think you can cheat me out of this. _”_

“Ah, the passion of youth. I remember it like it was this morning.”

“Because it _was._ I’ve been dead longer than either of us was alive, so shut up, _Pine Tree.”_

“Respect your elders, _Bill.”_

**Author's Note:**

> okay so YES I KNOW americans don't have two years of kindergarten but i needed the timeline to work so. AU where everything stays the same except i'm right and did enough research?


End file.
